Chapter 16 Disordered Reality 2

I looked at the hand, but most of it was still in the rock crevice. That was when I realized that the stone wall separating us was so thick, the hand couldn’t reach any further.

My first thought was that there might have been a lot of mummies in the space where that person was, and one of them had very long fingers that were dried up so the person had used that hand to pass me the sutra.

But I immediately noticed that those dry, slender, non-human fingers could move, and when they loosened their grip, the sutra fell to one side.

I watched the fingers in the crevice, but it looked like they couldn’t stretch any further than that—the space here was very small, so the person could almost touch my face if they stretched just a bit more. If I had an ordinary flashlight instead of my bright flashlight, I definitely wouldn’t be able to tell that such a pair of hands was pushing the sutra over.

As I kept shining my flashlight at the crevice where that strange hand was extending out from the darkness, the voice continued speaking, “Come on, read it quickly. Pass it back to me when you’re done.”

The fingers actually started grabbing at the rocks inside the crevice, as if they were eager. It was an eagerness for me to hand the sutra over so that it could grab my hand.

I looked at the crevice and suddenly felt that everything in front of me didn’t seem to make any sense. What happened to me? Did I become stupid after getting stuck between those heavy rocks?

The thing behind this rock was clearly sentient and could communicate, but it definitely wasn’t a human being.

And not only was the thing it threw over not a human tooth, but its hand definitely wasn’t human either. If anything, that hand was more like a zombie that had been dead for a long time.

Moreover, based on its behavior, I instantly realized that this thing was clearly trying to trick me into reaching into the crevice so that it could grab me with its claws.

I had never encountered such a situation before.

I huddled in the narrow space and carefully examined the tooth again.

That thing must not have been able to see me, because if it happened to peek through the crevice at this time, it would immediately see that I wasn’t reading the sutra but looking at the tooth.

The tooth was bigger than a human tooth and its edges were very sharp. It was also polished like a human molar but appeared to be more slender.

The blood was still there, which really did make it seem like it had been pulled from a living creature’s mouth.

I picked up the sutra book and opened it. I could tell right away that it had been around for a very long time, especially because the pages broke apart when touched. It wasn’t written in Chinese, but some other script I wasn’t familiar with. After examining it a bit more, I felt that it almost looked a bit like Tibetan. I figured it was probably a script that was used when Sanskrit first entered Tibet.

“Read it quickly and then give it back to me,” that thing continued urging me.

I saw its hand impatiently grabbing at the rocks in the crevice. It even seemed like it was trying hard to reach out and grab me directly.

Since I didn’t understand the current situation, I figured that it was all just a hallucination. I was having another hallucination, which was probably caused by a combination of claustrophobia and a concussion.

If that thing was a hallucination, then its personality must have been imagined by me. In other words, I was the one who constructed it. The surefire way to solve this problem was to ask it some questions I didn’t know myself and see if it could answer them.

I thought it over for a moment before cautiously saying, “I can’t understand it. Can you read it for me?”

The thing was silent for a while and didn’t answer. I waited a bit longer but found that it didn’t seem to have any desire to respond. I used my flashlight to illuminate the crevice again and found that the hand was suddenly gone.

Is it really a hallucination?

I found it a little odd, but the sutra was indeed very real. In fact, it had fallen apart and was lying in a scattered pile in front of me.

“Hello?!” I called out.

It still didn’t answer, and it was quiet all around. At this time, the watch on my wrist automatically lit up again.

I looked down at it and found that the time on it was completely messed up and displaying an absolutely impossible time.

36:83

<Chapter 15><Table of Contents><Chapter 17>

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Ok, I’ve actually been doing pretty good on the updates this week so pat on the back for me lol. I honestly don’t know if I’ll have time tomorrow since I have to do a lot of cooking after work (if we don’t lose power with this winter storm blowing in) and then I’ve got Christmas stuff this weekend. Sooooooo, next update might be Tuesday-ish. If I don’t get around to posting, Merry Christmas and happy holidays peeps!